Dopplr – the site where you list where you are flying to in the future thus creating happy coincidences with your business or social network – has completed a second of financing round from a roster of big names in the tech and media scene. They include: Esther Dyson, media entrepreneur Tyler Brûlé, Thomas Glocer, Yat Siu, Aditya dev Sood, Lars Hinrichs, Joshua Schachter, Brian Behlendorf, Ami Hasan, Daniel Sachs, Joshua Cooper Ramo, Kim Weckström, and London-based Angel Azeem Azhar. Saul Klein of The Accelerator Group, who invested in this round, also invested in the previous round together with Martin Varsavsky, Reid Hoffman (founder of PayPal and LinkedIn) and Joichi Ito. Another previous investor was Marko Ahtisaari, Director of Design Strategy at Nokia.
Some might ask if, with so many seed investors, Dopplr’s ownership isn’t going to end up being diluted somehow. However I would be highly surprised if this was the case, as the calibre of previous investors and management would not have allowed this to happen. Other than that, it will be interesting to see where Dopplr takes its innovative model, which appeals to roughly two million business travellers globally. Personally I’d like to “dopplr” my movement in a more granular manner (I’m off to central London from south west” or similar, somthing I often Twitter). Helsinki startup Zipiko allows me to do this (see here), but it’s such an early site it doesn’t yet have anywhere near the scale of Dopplr yet.
I am using it and i see a huge potential for it to merge with LinkedIn. It seems like a “big feature” for linked in and both target groups match as a glove.
I could almost bet what the investment exit will be
You mentioned:
“Personally I’d like to “dopplr” my movement in a more granular manner (I’m off to central London from south west” or similar, something I often Twitter).”
I see that there is the opportunity to add trips by any form of transport, including on foot etc., so presumably you could do this if you wanted to.
Best
SDJ